'AITA for telling my girlfriend I no longer plan to propose to her? Please read context.'
"AITA for telling my girlfriend I no longer plan to propose to her? Please read context."
I'm 28 and my girlfriend is 27, we've been together for almost 3 years and we live together. We've got a pretty solid relationship going on. no cheating or drama, we've both got good jobs, we talk about the future, and our families get along great. As far as I was concerned, we were doing all right.
The only small issue has been the whole engagement/proposal thing. I'm not against marriage, to be honest I've been looking forward to it and had a ring picked out, but I wanted it to be a surprise so didn't give her a specific date. I told her it was coming though, and I thought we were on the same page.
But over the past six months she's started to get more and more fixated on it - at first it was just normal conversation, then it turned into a bunch of little 'jokes' and comments about when I'd finally put a ring on it. Lately though, it's been on her mind 24/7.
Anything we disagree on gets turned into some variation on "this is why you haven't proposed yet." Last week when I saw a message preview on her iPad. I clicked on it (i know i shouldn't have) and saw a group chat with her friends.
They're all discussing how to manipulate me into proposing... things like giving me the cold shoulder, not putting in any effort as a partner, making me feel like I've done something wrong, no physical intimacy and so on. They were even talking about using her birthday as a deadline and making it clear to me that there were other options on the table if I didn't come through.
I'm not upset that she wants me to marry her, before this, I really did want to marry her. But now I am questioning whether or not I should really spend the rest of my life with someone who might manipulate me.
Anyway, I asked her straight out if she'd been trying to get me to propose by using all these weird tricks. And when she said yeah, she'd been trying to get some clarity and not waste any more time.
Basically that I should just propose already because if I was serious I'd have already done it. I told her I'm not proposing, especially if I'm being coerced into doing it. Basically, I told her if she keeps trying to manipulate me like that, I'm basically off the proposal train.
Now she's going around saying I'm punishing her for having some standard relationship needs and that I'm just dangling marriage as a way to control her because I'm not proposing fast enough. And her friends all think I'm the bad guy because i looked at her private messages.
Fair enough. I get it. She wants to know when we're going to be engaged. I get that three years is a reasonable amount of time to start feeling some anxiety about when things are going to get serious. But you cant force someone to marry you.
And most importantly - it's just made me realize that our relationship has been treated like some kind of game by her. AITA for telling her I'm not considering proposing for now after this?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
So prior to finding the messages on her iPad, why were you dragging your feet about proposing? If I’m reading this correctly, you basically said you would propose, and now 6 months later you still haven’t. I’d be frustrated too, if I was your girlfriend.
I think people are missing that part. He was dragging his feet because he really didn’t want to. He was waiting for a reason and found one.
Bingo! At 3 years he knows if he wants to marry her and if he did, he would have proposed already. He made a game of it by stringing her along and gets “offended” that she is trying to push a timeline.
She is also wrong for playing games to try to force it though. If you have to manipulate your way into an engagement then he doesn’t want to marry you and you’re just fast tracking your way to more misery and divorce.
So you told her you were ready to propose and then kicked the can down the road for 6 months... only to be like “nnnooooo you’re looking forward to it too much; now I don’t wanna”…. You never intended to propose you just wanted the happy feelings of pretending you were going to. YTA.
I agree. He basically lied to her and said they were going to get engaged. He needs to leave and let her go find someone who cares about her needs. He clearly doesn’t. He’s treating this relationship as a game.
The fact that you mention "no cheating" when referring to your relationship as "pretty solid" indicates you have set the bar pretty low when it comes to what you expect in a partner.
I told her I’m going to propose soon.
Six months later she was still waiting for the proposal. YTA.
NTA for having a response to her behavior. I can see how that might be a turn-off. The question, though, is whether you are now prepare to end the relationship, because reconsidering a proposal surely means reconsidering the whole relationship.
It’s been at least 6 months since you told her a ring and proposal were coming and you’re mad because she is trying to get you to actually poo or get off the pot? YTA.
YTA — It’s not unreasonable for her to want a proposal after 3 years and you giving hints that you are going to do it. The big question is whether there is some underlying reason you haven’t done so yet. If you don’t think marriage is the right thing for you or this relationship then man up and say so. Don’t lead her on.